“Unidentified gunmen opened fire at two intelligence agents on a road leading to Shoraw neighborhood in Kirkuk, killing them immediately,” the source said.

“A security force carried the bodies to the forensic medicine department and a probe was launched into the incident,” the source added.

Earlier in the day, a roadside bomb planted by Islamic State went off at a village south of Kirkuk, leaving two security men, including an officer, dead, Commander of Kirkuk Operations Maj. Gen. Ali Fadel Umran said.

Two other soldiers were wounded in clashes with Islamic State militants immediately after the bombing, Umran said.

At least 45 civilians and security personnel were killed in attacks launched by Islamic State militants on Hawija city, Kirkuk, over the past two months, a senior security official said on Tuesday.

“The Iraqi army and police, on the other hand, killed 288 Jihadists and arrested 55 others during the same period,” Middle East Online quoted the official as saying.

In October, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared that Iraqi troops recaptured Hawija, a main town held by Islamic State in the country.

The town fell to IS in June 2014, when the militant group seized control of much of northern and western Iraq and proclaimed the creation of a self-styled “caliphate”.